The PRPC directors approved a $12 million budget for the agency's 1999-2000 fiscal year. That is a 25-percent increase over last year, said executive director Gary Pitner.

"The increase is primarily for work force development child care and to fund equipment replacement for the 911 program," he said.

The vast majority of revenue for the PRPC comes from federal and state grants. Only a fraction, $53,000, comes from membership dues of 7.5 cents per person living in a city or county that is a member.

The 911 program receives much of its funding from state grants and charges collected by telephone companies. However, recent legislation mandated the money must flow from the state on a quarterly basis, and the board voted to ask for an advance of one quarter, $580,000, of this year's allotment.

"We do the training and everything else except answer the phones for the 24 counties we serve," said Pam Nielsen, director of the Panhandle Regional 911 Network.

Potter and Randall counties have their own system.

The board also voted to enter into contracts with eight cities to administer grants that were recently awarded them for water and sewer projects. PRPC will administer the programs, totaling almost $1.5 million, for $150,000, said Karen Babcock, local government services program coordinator.

The commission's solid waste management program will have a $399,000 budget, the same as last year. Added to its duties is a mapping project to locate all the closed landfills in the region, said John Kiehl, coordinator of the program.

The idea is to prevent new structures from being built on top of the dumps and then suffering the fate of collapsed ones in Houston and Lubbock.

"There are 75 closed, permitted dumps, but there are 86 that weren't permitted, and they will be harder to find," he said. "We will try to locate them and put the ones we can confirm on property records so someone won't develop on top of them."